


Clinging

by Code16



Series: briar vine [3]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Enslaved Mages, Fear, Hurt/Comfort, Mage!Harold, Mage!John, Mentions of Blood, Other, Punishment, Self-Sacrifice, Torture, Torture by proxy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 11:39:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8531644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Code16/pseuds/Code16
Summary: When Harold displeases their masters, they come for John.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in an enslaved mages world where both Harold and John are mages at the CIA, and John is Harold's whipping boy of sorts.

“19!”

John takes his hands away from the ward, falls still on his knees. Doesn’t turn around yet. A set of chains drops to the ground near him.

“Put em on and get up.” _Harold,_ John thinks, because it could be a mission and it could be his own doing but of course it’s Harold. Fastens the chains and stands and the two vines of it grow out and twine together inside him.

The first is dread. He can say it isn’t, but it is, tightening around him, memory that will never be as vivid as another moment, imagined futures that will affect reality in no way at all. Sometimes it’s - not so far out of the everyday, really. Harold’s version of a warning or stronger reprimand. A few hours of electricity, a beating till blood ran down his legs. Trying to make no sound and then screaming till his voice goes. Gentle stuff. Sometimes it - isn’t, and if being there with Harold in his work means he can sometimes know which it will be, being apart means he won’t know until they bring him in. (Until he sees the room, the minders, he thinks, but that isn’t it, hasn’t been for time after time now.

Until he sees Harold).

And that’s the other, of course. Harold pale and with a tremor in his hands and his eyes on John, Harold pressing fingers around his, the quiet I’m sorry and the abraded _please_ that John wants to say don’t to and almost never can. Harold holding him on the ground, Harold’s hands in the midst of agony. _”The strike was delayed two minutes. One target and three civilians were able to escape.”_ Harold says it, flat and without inflection, like a report, for just that long doesn’t look at John. Because his voice might betray him, John knows, because his eyes would. Because - _and why do you deserve it-_ is only part of punishment, but that’s not why he says it, not then, and John would call the minders back all over just to hear it again, to know it again.

 _I’m sorry_ , Harold whispers again, in the space before permission for healing, when they’re granted it. - _Not sorry enough, was it-_ , John’s heard from minders more times than counting - his own, others’. Harold’s, now. _Never,_ John thinks, pressing his fingers back into Harold’s when he can, Harold’s bloodstained uniform against his face. _Never be sorry enough_.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr for these kinds of things](http://findundergrounddragoutofwater.tumblr.com). I love fandom social things, and anyone who feels like they might want to message etc me for any reason is encouraged to totally do so.


End file.
